AI stocktaking for libraries and bookstores
Take stock by photographing the shelves. TitleEntry counts every book against your catalogue and tells you what is missing.
Try TitleEntry
Stocktaking is the job everyone puts off: every book taken down, scanned and put back. With TitleEntry the books stay where they are. You photograph each shelf, the AI recognises the books on it, and the stocktake shows only the differences between the shelves and the catalogue.
Last updated: 26 October 2026
One stocktake, two kinds of shelf
For libraries
The annual inventory, shelf by shelf and classroom by classroom, without pulling every book. Copy barcode labels count too, so books with no ISBN are not left out.
Library inventoryFor bookstores
Count the floor and the back room at year end or after a move. Books on the shelf that were never catalogued turn up in the report, ready to add.
Bookstore inventoryHow AI stocktaking works
Catalogue once
Build the catalogue with the AI bookshelf scanner or the barcode scanner, or import the list you already keep. Stocktaking compares the shelves against it.
Photograph the shelves at stocktake
Start a stocktake and photograph each shelf. The AI reads the spines and finds every book in your catalogue; you tick the matches before they count.
Act on the differences
The report lists only what does not add up. Look for the missing books, correct the counts, add the strays, and keep the export as your record.
Every screen of it, step by step: how to run a stock check from shelf photos. Written for shops: bookshop stocktaking.
What a stocktake gives you
Not a second catalogue to reconcile by hand. At the end of an AI stocktake you have:
- A count of every book seen, shelf by shelf
- The books your catalogue expects that were not found
- Titles with fewer copies on the shelf than on record
- Books on the shelf that are not catalogued at all
- Each list exported to Excel for whoever asked
- Your catalogue left exactly as it was
Scanning and stocktaking, one tool
The same AI that reads a shelf to catalogue it reads it again to count it. Catalogue with the AI bookshelf scanner or import the spreadsheet you have, stocktake with photos, and keep both in one place.
Against a list as well
A stocktake compares the shelves with your catalogue. To compare the catalogue with an outside list of titles, such as an approved list, check books against a list.
Frequently asked questions
AI stocktaking counts a book collection from photos of its shelves instead of scanning each book. The AI reads the spines, matches each book to the catalogue and reports what was not found, what is short and what is not catalogued.
Yes. A stocktake checks the shelves against a catalogue. If you have none, build it with the AI bookshelf scanner or the barcode scanner; if you keep a spreadsheet, import it.
Every match is shown before it is counted, and uncertain reads wait for a person to tick them. Matching uses the ISBN first, then title and author, so a different book with a similar title is not counted by mistake.
No, but you can use one. Shelf photos, the phone camera, a USB scanner and copy barcode labels all count into the same stocktake.
No. It reports the differences and never changes a quantity or removes a book. You decide what to correct.
Get in touch and we will set up your library or shop and walk through a first stocktake with you.